Scotland to receive extra £3.4bn in UK Budget, says chancellor

As well as an increase in the tax rate on oil and gas producer profits, the Budget reduced the tax allowances companies can claim, which act an incentive to keep investing.

David Whitehouse, chief executive of Offshore Energies UK, said it was a “difficult day” for the industry.

Scotch Whisky Association chief executive Mark Kent described the increase on spirits duty as a “hammer blow”.

The levy was increased by 10% by the previous UK government, and industry bosses had been hoping for a reprieve.

Mr Kent accused Reeves of increasing “tax discrimination of spirits in the Treasury’s warped duty system, and with 70% of UK spirits produced in Scotland, that will do further damage to a key Scottish sector”.

John Dickie, Director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, welcomed greater protections for Universal Credit claimants threatened with deductions due to debt.

However, he said the Budget “missed a golden chance to scrap the two-child limit, a policy that will pull 16,000 extra children into poverty by the time the government’s child poverty taskforce reports in spring”.